Professor Anomaly’s post asks the question: “Is global wealth Inequality unjust?”. He cites Dan Moller in an article about economic growth divergence which is pretty convincing. Moller points out that most of the disparities in wealth can be attributed to exponential economic growth that certain nations seemed to stumble upon. The causes for these are not known, but they seem to be long-term over the course of hundreds of years. Likely candidates include scientific advancement and technology, political and economic institutions, bourgeois social norms, etc. Since growth was similar across countries that participated in colonialism and ones that did not, over the course of hundreds of years and many different policies, it seems clear that colonial exploitation, while awful and unjust, isn’t a good explanation for differences in wealth. The resources exploited were trivial in terms of how vastly the differences in economic development are. I would highly recommend reading the whole article. Continue reading →